I'd been thinking about buying a MD for several years, and recently received an Ace 250 as a totally unexpected birthday present from my dad.
I've been a military history nut most of my life, with a special interest in WWII. I always thought it would be awesome to MD a nearby former WWII base. This former base is 90% of the reason that I wanted a MD.
I've been detecting the former base the last few times I've been out, and am sorely discouraged, disappointed and am clueless of what to do and how to hunt it.
This base, which is now a county park, spans about 4,000 acres, but most of the activity was centered in one small area of the park.
My best friend worked there many, many years ago, and tried to tell me before I bought a detector that the old base would be covered in trash and billions of old nails. (The park sold the buildings for $1 each for the lumber, and when they were being deconstructed, the nails were thrown everywhere.)
My friend also told me about how the entire base was leveled originally with excavators and dozers. All the low areas were filled with crushed stone, and fill dirt covered the top of that. I've found both crushed limestone and what I call river gravel, most likely mined out of some of the river bottom quarries that were once on the base.
Digging here is hard, to say the least. Nearly every place I've dug, I hit stone two or three inches down.
Aside from that problem....
I am getting iron hits like crazy. I went out Friday night, and tried to hit one field. I am not kidding when I say that the Ace 250 is beeping 4 times or more times in one single three foot swing. "Beep. Beep. Beep, Beeep. Beeeeeeep."
The first time out, I tried to dig every signal just like I've read on here a million times. I feel like if I dug every signal here, I would never, ever get off my knees.
I am really disappointed because I hoped I would be finding buttons, dog tags, M-1 shell casings, an occasional jeep part, and some older coinage from the 40's and 50's. So far, I've found 18 nails, (all eight penny), some pull tabs, some bottle caps, and a few clad coins near a newer tot lot.
Sometimes when I dig, I find nothing at all, which is super-duper disappointing. Could it be 'hot' rocks in the river gravel that have iron deposits?
I'm not ready to quit, but I would have sold this 250 for a couple of gallons of gas the other night. And I am basically brand new with MDing....the detector works fine...so I know it is me.
How do you attack an area like this?
What mode should I run in?
Should I just drop back and punt on this former base?
Should I just run in coin mode, even though I know some of this place has been pounded to death by better machines?
Originally, I had hoped to work this area block by block, but since it is so grown up around the old barracks, I've been working small parts around where the motor pool and division headquarters once stood because it is still mowed very short...Advice?
Thank you so much for your help and expertise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've been a military history nut most of my life, with a special interest in WWII. I always thought it would be awesome to MD a nearby former WWII base. This former base is 90% of the reason that I wanted a MD.
I've been detecting the former base the last few times I've been out, and am sorely discouraged, disappointed and am clueless of what to do and how to hunt it.
This base, which is now a county park, spans about 4,000 acres, but most of the activity was centered in one small area of the park.
My best friend worked there many, many years ago, and tried to tell me before I bought a detector that the old base would be covered in trash and billions of old nails. (The park sold the buildings for $1 each for the lumber, and when they were being deconstructed, the nails were thrown everywhere.)
My friend also told me about how the entire base was leveled originally with excavators and dozers. All the low areas were filled with crushed stone, and fill dirt covered the top of that. I've found both crushed limestone and what I call river gravel, most likely mined out of some of the river bottom quarries that were once on the base.
Digging here is hard, to say the least. Nearly every place I've dug, I hit stone two or three inches down.
Aside from that problem....
I am getting iron hits like crazy. I went out Friday night, and tried to hit one field. I am not kidding when I say that the Ace 250 is beeping 4 times or more times in one single three foot swing. "Beep. Beep. Beep, Beeep. Beeeeeeep."
The first time out, I tried to dig every signal just like I've read on here a million times. I feel like if I dug every signal here, I would never, ever get off my knees.
I am really disappointed because I hoped I would be finding buttons, dog tags, M-1 shell casings, an occasional jeep part, and some older coinage from the 40's and 50's. So far, I've found 18 nails, (all eight penny), some pull tabs, some bottle caps, and a few clad coins near a newer tot lot.
Sometimes when I dig, I find nothing at all, which is super-duper disappointing. Could it be 'hot' rocks in the river gravel that have iron deposits?
I'm not ready to quit, but I would have sold this 250 for a couple of gallons of gas the other night. And I am basically brand new with MDing....the detector works fine...so I know it is me.
How do you attack an area like this?
What mode should I run in?
Should I just drop back and punt on this former base?
Should I just run in coin mode, even though I know some of this place has been pounded to death by better machines?
Originally, I had hoped to work this area block by block, but since it is so grown up around the old barracks, I've been working small parts around where the motor pool and division headquarters once stood because it is still mowed very short...Advice?
Thank you so much for your help and expertise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
) But to no avail. The machine clicked and clacked EVERYWHERE, and all he got was some minor junk that over-rode the constant noise/chatter. No matter how he set the settings, the montage continued, and he was ready to give it up. However, before pitching the machine, he got ahold of a hunter in his area, to join him in trying this particular yard. In 30 seconds, the experienced hunter spotted the problem: The entire yard was lined, at about 8" deep, with chicken screen, for purposes of gopher control, at some point in the previous decades. The experience user didn't even need to dig it up, to see. A sample excavation down confirmed that it was the SITE, and not the MACHINE. But you see, no amount of "printed text" conversation, even with an experienced user, could have un-raveled that. It simply has to be shown, not read about, in printed text.
It shouldn't take too long to master the 250, because I did... 
